So sayeth the ever-reliable New York Post:

Two sources in the golf community have told The Post that Ari Fleischer, the former presidential advisor to George W. Bush and the man who was brought in to help repair the steroid-shattered image of Mark McGwire, has been huddling with Woods, plotting a strategy for his return to golf — at the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 25 at Bay Hill in Orlando, Fla.

“They were in his living room this week going over a strategy for how to handle Bay Hill in two weeks,” one source told The Post.

The other source told The Post, “I would be shocked if he didn’t play the Arnold Palmer.”

Shocked I tell ya. Shocked!

Two things.

1) This is somewhat earlier than earlier pundit guesses. The sexy choice about two and half weeks ago was the Master’s at Augusta National on April 5-11. There’s no entry cutoff. You can show up for your tee time and go from there. So he could have kept it under the radar, something that fits well with his persona.

2) The sooner the better. Just get this guy back on the golf course. He went through his therapy to keep up appearances. He gave his public apology. The next step is for him to start golfing again, so we have something else to talk about: the greatest golfer in the world doing what he does best.

A rich, powerful, successful, competitive man had sex with several woman. Was it morally wrong? Of course. Are we kidding ourselves if we don’t believe there aren’t countless other athletes who have done/are currently doing it/will do the same in the future?

Yes, yes we are.

Once he steps back onto the golf course, the focus starts to turn away from all that extracurricular activities, and back to why we were ever talking about this guy in the first place.

Have y’all heard of Logorama, the Oscar winner for Best Animated Short?

Nah? OK. (You can watch it here.)

A description: It’s a 16-minute film set in Los Angeles in which the landscape and its inhabits are all logos. The cops are Michelin Men. Ronald McDonald is the villain they are trying to apprehend. The mischievous kid is Big Boy. The MGM lion is in the zoo.

Some French bros made it. It’s a social critique about brands/consumerism engulfing our lives.

Do you get the drill? I think you get the drill.

So yes: Mixed in with the many brands, I happened to spy the Bulls’ logo popped onto the head of Michelin Man during the climax — that’s what she said — of the film.

Boom:

The end.

Guys.

Remember when I wrote that even though the Olympic gold-medal game between Canada and the U.S. was totally awesome and sooo many people watched it, I was still dubious the sport would actually gain a considerable new fanbase from such a game?

Well, if we’re going to cherrypick one game a week after said game and look at its ratings — which I’ll admit is a small sample size and probably not fair at all — my thesis stands up. So far.

From Sports Media Watch:

The Red Wings’ 5-4 win over the Blackhawks drew a 1.2 overnight rating on NBC Sunday afternoon, up 20% from Bruins/Rangers on the comparable date last year (1.0), but down 8% from Penguins/Capitals on February 7 (1.3), NBC’s last NHL telecast before the Olympic break.

This marks the fourth straight NHL telecast on NBC to draw at least a 1.2 overnight rating. To put that in perspective, NBC did not draw an overnight higher than 1.1 during the previous two seasons (excluding the Winter Classic).

Now, of course, the Penguins/Captials matchup is probably going to bring in more viewers, insomuch as it’s a game that features Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. So that’s why there’s a little drop there. And it’s nice to see that year-over-year hockey has improved.

But as far as the gold-medal game buzz carrying over? Doesn’t look like it happened.

Feast your eyes on these beauties:

The full interview with WGN, in which Guillen talks about his team, and of course, his Twitter account, is after the jump.

Keep reading →

And you thought Avatar was the hottest thing in 3D. Pssh. Nah son. It’s the latest cover of Fadeaway Magazine. Step aside Na’vi. You may be one with the Pandora, but are you one with the basketball court?

HT: Docksqaud Sports

I had my reservations that it was actually him, but these confirmations from his son as well as the social media strategist that works with the Sox and set Ozzie up with it seem to have sealed it: yes, Ozzie Guillen is now on Twitter.

So what is he tweeting about? Is he spouting off multiple tweets in a row because 140 characters isn’t enough to contain everything that’s in that brilliant mind of his? (No.) Is he giving us insight to the first few days of camp? (Sorta.) Maybe telling some jokes? (Not really.)

A few sample tweets:

3 day of Spring Training and im already boreddddddd

10 15 pm going to sleep big day tomorrow bbque at my house after practice yessssss

I feel nice and relax today I don’t know why yeeessssssss carlos quentin and rios in camp b ready people

Yessssssssssssssssssss, indeed.

In sum: Ozzie Guillen tweets like a 13-year-old girl.

In the future, there will be no need for human beings in sports. We’ve already figured out refs are human, and humans err. So we have things like video replay to steer them in the right direction. This is only the first step. Why pay someone to walk around the stadium selling popcorn, when it’s cheaper and more efficient to have robots do it? (You don’t even have to tip them!)

Why pay millions of dollars for a coach each year, when you can program a robot to calculate the odds of each situation on a dime, and adjust accordingly?

Why pay for cameramen, when you can utilize a system that does a better job than them? Oh, wait:

Unlike single-minded humans, APIDIS tracks the ball and players simultaneously, using a network of connected cameras. With this network, the system calculates which angle captures the most detail, and displays it to the viewer accordingly.

Even crazier (and the reason why it will truly take off), is a feature that allows coverage to be customized to a user’s viewing preferences.

Wait a second, I can customize my viewing preference to watch one particular player the whole time? Here’s looking at you, Aaron Gray!*

*This joke would be three percent funnier if he were still on the Bulls.

HT: SB Nation